Surrealism in Painting: An Experience of Structural Analysis

Abstract

The article examines the structure of pictures considered as surrealist painting. More specifically, it outlines and prioritizes distinctive features of surrealist paintings. Despite there is a large number of literary sources on surrealism, this topic still remains underdeveloped. To analyse surreal images, a system of motor construction levels developed by the famous psychophysiologist N. A. Bernstein is used. The painting is viewed as a collection of the artist's motor actions. This system consists of a series of levels, each of which includes movements of equal complexity. Taken together, these levels form a hierarchy. Within this hierarchy systemic inversions may develop, in which the lower, subordinate level takes on a dominant role. The combination of these levels is characteristic of every artistic movement, including surrealism. The lower motor levels are almost completely absent in surreal images. The level that ensures the similarity between the depicted and the depicted object is very strong. The next level, which provides operations with topological classes of objects and schematization of their images, gets a specific expression, when the image is subjected to deliberate and purposeful distortion. However, the vector of these distortions is determined by the next motor level. This level is the highest in the hierarchy and performs operations with symbols. The symbolic level of activity manifests itself in a specific way in surrealist paintings. The author demonstrates that this level does not reproduce, but rather simulates dreams and other products of the unconscious, and each image takes on a specific symbolic meaning. Some of these symbols, created by the artist, are concluded to be potentially considered as part of the cultural heritage.

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